Profound Sadness

For so long I have struggled with this profound sadness. I have run from it the whole of my life. From a small child I seemed to have been cursed with this underlying sense of futility. Why this world? Why am I here and to what good purpose. Such questions took me on a very long and arduous journey. One I still traverse even to this very moment.

I have over 27 journals of experiences in seeking a meaning to life. Searching to find something impervious to the dual experiences of joy and pain. Is that GOD or GODDESS? How often my definition of God and Goddess changed throughout the years... to the point that I had arrived at a place in myself where I was absolutely convinced: no such beings existing at all. God and Goddess it seemed to me, were no more infallible than any other human thought and in fact were not even creative or orignal thoughts. In fact even LESS creative or original than any other 'inspired' thoughts because they were, in my view, over-used and over-rated.

Who in our 21st century doesn't proclaim and ultimately commercialize the concept of GOD? What great teacher or master out there hasn't had their name besmeared by our gluttonous humanity - even were they legitimately enlightend or awakened? I haven't found a one.

Many years ago while still in my teens, I vowed my life to "GOD". I attempted to join a nunnery and even went so far as to travel all the way to Croatia with the Catholic church on a spiritual "mission". Not finding the truth I sought, I moved on to what would be called even a more stringent and ascetic approach to life than that which the Catholic church held- as impossible as that seems. Yet I did find one in the open arms of a "new life" cult proclaiming the cause of Christ. This too ended when I could no longer deny that the same hypocrisy I saw in traditional religions was even doubly present among the fanatical ones. I gave up on God for awhile.

I turned to Goddess. This too ended in very short order. Once again I was bereft. It was at this point in my life that I happened upon a book that seemed to intrigue me. On the inside cover the publication date was the date of my birthday. In my own strange sort of way, that seemed a sign for me to perhaps read through it. I had read about everything else so why not this too I rationalized to myself. And it was true, I had seen this book cross my path for a solid month and resisted it - so I read it. It was the book 'Autobiography of A Yogi' by Paramahansa Yogananda. The week I finished this book, a friend called me, well I should say more like a sister as we would often fight like siblings. She called to tell me she was moving across country to meet this amazing woman she believed to be of another dimension entirely, and would I like to come to a "last supper" type gathering at her home. Now this friend you should understand was a soothsayer by trade to begin with, so right off the bat anything that came out of her mouth I immediately relegated to idiocy and disregarded. Yet, because I adored her nonetheless, I did attend her party after much encouragement by her and also, a fair amount of manipulation by way of her emphasizing it was a last good-bye sort of thing.

So off I went and, in process, I was introduced to a host of spiritual teachers in one form or other from this evening soiree. Seems everyone had a guru, except me. I was also introduced to a long time friend of my hostess whose name was John  claimed to be the oldest and first student of this yet to be known mysterious woman teacher. Upon meeting him, the very LAST definition of him I would have given was a spiritual anything whatsoever. While charming and pleasant, and true we had a very interesting conversation, I remained unimpressed and ended the night with a casual "good luck!" to all and left. Curiously, the next day this John person called to say how much he enjoyed our conversation and invited me to dinner. Seemed he was staying the week to help my friend move to her new "spiritual" home. I agreed to go.

Toward the end of our group dinner that next night, John attempted to ask me on a date. Something I was absolutely NOT about to embark on. History had proven out that relationships were generally a big fraud, rife with selfish ambitions under the guise of "passion and love"; not to mention the fact that I for one, was entirely NOT interested in dating anyone. Even if they WERE "inspired". Thanks I told him but, NO. Yet, throughout the year our friendship remained and over this time I learned more and more about Jane, the woman teacher my friend was running across the country to devote her life to. As fate would have, to my unsuspecting self, by years end, I was off and running the same.

I closed up my little shop on the eastern seaboard of the United States, and moved to no-where, Missouri. My near ten years experiences there filled volume after volume of journals on the intricacies, pitfalls, challenges, and triumphs of the spiritual path. And then one day, the bottom fell out of it all. My depressions returned, two children and one marriage later, my depression was back in full swing.

Again, I abandoned all notions of God, Goddess or Spirit. Yet something otherwordly persisted in my vision. Nonetheless, I had not a name for it and disregarded it. Mainly from the overwhelming series of depressions I had been struggling with. And you really have no idea how deep such a depression runs. Nor, how one like myself who is fully conscious of being subjected to it has truly mastered the art of "acting normal". I believe I should win an academy award. But I do also feel, were I to ever be given this award, it would have to be given to me by my very own self because no one aside of myself and the blank page have any idea whatsoever on the length and breadth such depression can consume in a person's being. This "void" feeling consumes your whole being.

Throughout the years, I cared for my children. And did so very well. I cared for others also struggling with fears and challenges. I nursed my youngest through an inherent birth defect at birth requiring major surgery, and then another surgery 6 years after the first one. As well as 4 years of therapy. I worked insane hours - from home as well as out of the home when I had help to do so, in order to provide the basic necessities. Some semblance of things being "OK" for my children. They are healthy, well adjusted little flowers in the garden of life and are still growing. I am so proud of them. But they too add to the weight of my depression. This because I know the day will come when they too shall seek that which endures, that which is not subject to time, space and karmic plays. And I... Well, I won't be able to give that to them. I will have nothing to give. My life will be the fraud that every other life pans out to be when one has no knowledge of who they really are - if they really exist- and for what purpose?

This my lifetime dilemma and source of my depressions. I wonder whom could relate? As humans, it is natural to seek a feely-good type of sensation. We do this in so many ways: the foods we want to eat, the people we want to socialize with, the lovers we desire to take, the desires we have in general. All of which bring to us in "our mind" something that "feels good". All of which directly relates to "GOD or GODDESS". For do we not become so hateful of our own beingness that it is in these very moments we start looking for something beyond it all? We certainly do, and this we call "GOD". I found this God-seeking to be, at least for me, another manifestation of wanting to feel good in an insidious way, seeking something that to take the pain away. God - the great panacea! It is a truism indeed the old adage that "religion is the opium of the masses". I found myself disgusted by religion at this point. Not the singular path whereby one strives in their own heart, but the collective movements, the MACHINE that is our world of religions; under which so much wrong is done and all for 'noble and exalted' causes.

The sense of a big vast, void of futility is persistant in me. I feel no goodness in myself or in anything. I can see good in the distance, but I disdain it for it does not endure. Where is that all-enduring one-ness everyone preaches and proclaims? The end of suffering and confusions? This I would like to know.

Today I stood in front of my Meher Baba picture. I received this picture and a host of others like it mysteriously one day in the mail back in 1998. To this day, no one knows where this very large kodack picture came from. It seems an original blow up of an actual photo taken of Meher Baba. I had originally been introduced to Baba when browsing the bookshelves of a local bookstore some years back. I was at the time an avid reader, particularly on controversial topics like spiritual masters, gurus, phenomena, theologies, quantum physics, anything that would maybe help make some sense out of this life. That day I recall I found nothing of interest - nothing I had not already read from the pseudepigrapha of the Jewish to the tantric cults of the East. However, I wandered by the trash bin and saw in there a book that intrigued me. I thought it was a children's book because of the image on the cover. So I picked it up and brought it home. I cried when I read that book. I explained much of what I felt I was experiencing with my life. How I had in some moment of insanity decided to pack everything up- move across the country as a single parent to live near a purported woman "Saint" whom in fact, when I arrived, ordered me out of her sight and told me I had made a huge mistake in coming all that way in the first place. Can you imagine the heartbreak and torment? Only if you lived through maybe then you could understand. And this is how it all came about that I was introduced to Meher Baba.

So today, I am sitting in front of this curious photo that I so often threatened to throw in the trash, and I simply cried as I have often done. I cried and I questioned, "Why?". Why this all consuming futility? Why now when I was trying to convince myself there was something in life worth doing, worth creating, worth giving to, why now again is that ominous void back in full force to once again, take it all away? I confessed to Meher Baba's picture the following on this day, "Surely I must have been borne from hell itself to feel this way. To be so dissecting, to have traversed so many ups and downs. To be shown that even phenomena, even miracles, are illusion. To know that there is no life nor death, in fact there is no where to go. I couldn't even WILL MYSELF TO DIE because I already know that I would still EXIST. What kind of God are you? And I speak not just to you Sir, Baba, but to every Baba, Christ, Krishna or Devi out there. I WISH I could have the bliss of the devotee, but even that is denied me. I wish I could set my hand to a task and say 'I did this for YOU' God. Yet, this too is a fallicy. What could I possibly give to a non-existant entity that is at its essence the very thrust of all created existence?"

I feel imprisoned. Encased in the cell of my persona, my body, my beingness, my existence. I am a prisoner. And worse, I don't even know anymore how to go to God with it. God has surely abandoned me. I am not asking for feelings of bliss, nor enlightenment, no healing gifts. Were I to ask for such things they would be only to help others. Yet I am subject to the same physical laws the rest of the created world is subject to. I have sought every teaching, tried to believe in every spirit, faerie, deva and devi. I can honestly say that in and of themselves, each dimension is possible. Just not for me. Nor could I say possible for anyone else either. I say this because if one cannot save ones own self with rhetoric, do you really believe they can save anyone else? I feel at this time the one real desire of my soul is to be free of all the duality. Either transcend the law or simply be immune to it. I would wish this for all creatures in a way, this freedom. Freedom from both death and life. To come to this world consciously and serve is one thing, to come here unconsciously is living in hell. A great unknown mystic wrote a book called "The Cloud of Unknowing". Personally, I call it the HELL of unknowing. Then too this leads to the question of who is the knower and really, what is the KNOWN.

If there were one true and right path to knowing the self, I would proclaim it. Yet I have not found one. I often seek to do creative things to express the energy and life I feel within but am incapable of harnessing for any good purpose. Then when I set my hand to something I find myself unable to commit to it and why? Because the bigger question of "WHY?" still persists- unanswered.

While normally on a Sunday I would be busy about my perfumery works - an ancient art form I know of and have known of for several lifetimes. On this day not even in the ONE THING I feel I can do well, do I find any consolation. I was thinking of trying to offer this small task or gift to God in a way. Maybe it would be something others would find joy in. But I was unable to convince myself of any true joy in anything I set my hand to. How can something so third dimensional contain an iota of true enduring unending joy? Only the heart can do that. God where is this heart? I feel it is possible yet I don't find it there. Not enough of it to wash away the pain.  I have shied these most recent years in writing about this- much less ADMITTING this. I have even forced myself to adopt a multiplicity of personalities to fit in, convince myself I have a real home on this planet, find where I really belong. But I have yet to find it anywhere on this earth. I feel so dispicable to make such admissions for they are stark contrast to the much good done in this world by loving hands and loving hearts. I do not wish to take the goodness of others away by making my personal admissions and confessions here - believe me. I do not disdain the whole of the world for others- I only disdain it directly relevant to my own single beingness. This is my real truth. My truth at this time is pain.

One possible consolation though that I have just now realized. When the pain of the soul engulfs you- every other pain seems to pale in comparison. One can almost understand what is meant by "detachment" in such moments. For in these moments, the pain is so enormous and so overwhelming that one feels numbed to all else. Only when the supreme longing of the heart and soul is quenched would the pain be abated. At least, that is how I see it would be. Then again, I know only the one side at this time. The dark side. The dark side of myself, my life, the life of this world.

After running so long away from it, I have no idea what has inspired such reflections so suddenly at this time. Perhaps it is the menstrual cycle. Sounds silly perhaps but I have observed that whenever the moon time occurs, I am in the throes of these feelings more acutely. Also, I have vivid dreams. I know not how to understand them. The past three nights I have had dreams. The first night I dreamt of a plant (I do love plants but this vision has no context in any memory I can recall), and this was in my dream called the "Thorns of Christ". It actually resembled the Myrhha tree - one of my favorite aromatic botanicals actually. But it was not called Myrhh in my vision but I was shown this and it was called "Thorns of Christ" instead. The next night, I dreamt of a huge field of sunflowers. Bursting with life and energy and a gorgeous blue green on stalk and stem and leaves. However, the flower buds were not yet bloomed. I was amidst this field and could see they would all bloom in their right time. But they were clearly going to bloom for sure. They were sturdy and strong and magificent and I was most happy to be amidst such vitality and life. The third night I dreamt of being in a strange place and there were beautiful birds everywhere. It was full of light and joy. A very large bird which I identified as an eagle that was bluish in color soared right by me. Then suddenly, a gorgeous bird appeared and the coloring was remarkable. I can only attribute it to some sort of astral type color for I know no such color here on earth. It was a large majestic bird with a long train for a tail. It came with a message for me but not on in words. The bird came to show me that its very presence was a message for me but what exactly that is I do not know. And I knew it was a bird that did exist though one no where near my geographic locale here on earth. Suddenly it turned purposefully and fanned its tail and I knew at once that it was a beautiful Peacock! I have not seen a peacock or even a picture of a peacock in years. I have no such iconography or art around me to inspire this particular imagery. Yet here was this peacock, a glorious illuminated pale violet and white color, luminescent, and it came specifically to show me it was here. I have no idea why or what for.

Perhaps I will continue to write out my heart as it comes. I have avoided doing so after so many years. Perhaps it will be a good thing, maybe the one thing, I can do that will help me somehow be whole.

Comments

[Pg]

Sibyllae- why do you post your diary online? I have been thinking of doing this but can't really find any good reason for it... seems so personal. - Pg

[Sibyllae]

Hello Pg,
The answer (an honest one): Because I have not overcome the sense of separate-ness I feel so acutely. Publishing to an "audience" creates a sense of being heard; a feeling of connectedness. (Even if in reality that audience amounts to just one person, i.e.: myself.)